۞ God is the light of the heavens and the earth. His light may be compared to a niche containing a lamp, the lamp inside a crystal of star-like brilliance lit from a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west. The [luminous] oil is as if ready to burn without even touching it. Light upon light; God guides to His light whom He will. God draws such comparisons for mankind; God has full knowledge of everything. 35 (Those who obtain guidance to His light are found) in the houses which He has enjoined to raise up and to mention His name therein. In them such people glorify Him morning and evening 36 as are not diverted by trade and merchandise from remembering Him and from establishing Salat and paying Zakat, for they fear the Day when the hearts will be overturned and the eyes will become petrified. 37 That Allah may recompense them the best for that which they worked and may increase unto them of His grace, and Allah provideth for whomsoever He will without measure. 38 And (as for) those who disbelieve, their deeds are like the mirage in a desert, which the thirsty man deems to be water; until when he comes to it he finds it to be naught, and there he finds Allah, so He pays back to him his reckoning in full; and Allah is quick in reckoning; 39 Or (their efforts may be likened to those of a man trying to swim in) a deep dark ocean, covered with billows, one over the other, and above it a cloud: darkness upon darkness: so much so that if he stretches out his hand, he cannot see it. There is no light for the one whom Allah does not give light. 40